


a room by the ocean

by Elisye



Category: New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Gen, Identity Issues, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Post-Canon, Self-Harm, Simulation AU, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, Virtual Reality, You Will Get Whatever You Get is the entire style of this fic, post game worldbuilding yeehaw au the fic, this entire fic is me going "HECK!!!!!!" bc i have zero plans im writing this blind, whats a neat chronological timeline
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-21
Updated: 2019-08-29
Packaged: 2020-05-18 17:40:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19339378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elisye/pseuds/Elisye
Summary: In the end, the audience decides whether the ending is true or false. But the aftermath is for us alone—the player pieces on this gameboard called a tale—to write and believe in.(or: yumeno, ouma, and magicortricks.)





	1. trick (i): antimony of the liar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When a witch runs out of lies, do they become a witch of truths?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im actually in a completely different fandom these days but lmao i still sometimes wanna write for ndrv3, kinda ww
> 
> i also just wanna say in advance that ouma-centric chapters are basically gonna be a chronological clusterfuck to follow at first because this boy does Not want to exist, much less be subject to the constraints of linear time.
> 
> chapter title is another fancier-ish term for the [liar's paradox](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liar_paradox) concept, which illustrates the logical paradox in something stating it is a lie - for if _this sentence is a lie_ and it is a lie, then it is saying the truth; however, should it be the truth, then the sentence is indeed lying, meaning the sentence is being truthful in stating so.

 

 

 

time is an utter mess here.

so it's day whatever the fuck when it all comes around and together, and doesn't.

you're not sure what's the point of being complaisant, your heart beating much too fast and much too alive to be pleasant. you suppose it's because it isn't easy to do as you please - you've checked the locks on the window and the locks on the door and had to memorize your very own map, a construction jumbled between a direct rote-memorization of a three-floor hospital layout on paper and your own little scavenger hunts around the place. there isn't much of a difference between the paper map and your own experience of what the place is like, though.

anyway. you suppose, you suppose maybe, you could just try harder and leave. you haven't forgotten how to pick locks, even if it's implanted nonsense. you definitely haven't forgotten how to tease lies and truths in any measure, to curl words and meanings into whatever you'd like such things to be. if you tried - you could run, and never look back.

the heartbeat monitor murmurs a constant tune in electrograph blue.

something in you keeps following the beat, dutifully. tapping fingers, idle counting, the occasional humming of an actual tune pressed between your lips. you don't do anything else besides that though - your brain is pleasantly clear, pleasantly empty, light but not white or black. just drifting free.

you close your eyes, breathe - in, out, deep.

if you tried - and that's the kicker, really, if you  _try_ \- you could do as you like, perhaps. but doing more than what the word simplicity implies is just -

you open your eyes. plain ceiling above, spring turning to summer outside. the hospital isn't top-notch, so they don't have air conditioning. the next few months are going to be unbearable, you think. small, quiet things, you think. you know, for sure, you can think of more than that, do more than that, but well. it's really tiring, you know?

isn't this why people retire to the countryside?

 

 

 

 

ten billion seconds or maybe just an hour later, who knows - you hear a soft knock on the door and the friendliest nurse on shift today, a petite Miss Harumi, say something about your first-ever guest with an excited pitch that gets filtered and muffled through the wood. there's a giggle that follows right after, Miss Harumi no doubt happy that someone,  _someone,_  from the inexplicable outdoors has finally decided to give you the time of the day, but you unfortunately do not share the same sentiments. the last time anyone that wasn't hospital staff decided to visit you was when—

"Ouma-san?" the nurse knocks again, this time a bit more puzzled. you don't reply.

a few more knocks, each one a little louder than the last, before a silent pause. you can almost see Miss Harumi sighing, shaking her head at your mystery guest. there are muffled words, too soft to be understood, but you don't particularly care if you disappointed or annoyed anyone. you don't want to bother with people, and honestly, people shouldn't bother with you either.

there are some footsteps, soon after. your overreactive brain thinks of it as familiar, because of a card and a reason you won't dwell on at all. you force a disbelieving scoff and pull your thin blankets over your head.

 

 

 

 

you wake up, and for a bit, just a bit, you stew like that.

staring up into oblivion, into this thing called life and living, wondering what you're doing here, breathing.

Miss Harumi walks in just as you consider pulling out your IV, her face cheerful but with the shadows of a greater concern tucked away. you almost, almost feel bad for what you did on her very first shift with you.

almost.

guilt is for people without plans and without greater purposes. for people who don't usually have to make serious judgment calls about life and death. and you definitely don't feel guilt - much less regret - about your choices. they were necessary. they served a good purpose. and those little, little things called consequences—were not as good, not at all, but fuck that. you don't care, not when you had some semblance of power and control that could be put towards salvaging whoever was left from their own murderous potential.

besides. it was all virtual, anyway. doesn't matter if it's fiction, right, haha?

haha.

 

 

 

 

"Uh. Ouma-san?" a knock on the door. you don't recognize the voice, even muffled - must be a newbie. or maybe some med intern, who knows. "You in there? Got a guest."

you roll your eyes and just sink deeper against your pillow. despite the collective decision among the staff to open up the windows - it's getting warmer, slowly slowly - the one in your room remains closed and locked. it will probably be opened when it gets too stuffy to be bearable, and even then, only when someone can stick around to keep a close eye on you. can't have you leaping out and going splat five storeys down—

you grit your teeth, and  _breathe._

 

 

 

 

it's officially summer now.

the window remains locked. Miss Harumi looks very apologetic as your whine about how _hot_ the room gets throughout the day, the absolutely  _annoying_ way the sun shines into your eyes, how your clothes and sheets just become so  _itchy_ and _sweaty_ and _unbearable_ and _you should just leave me locked up in here, i'd love being baked to death, you know!_

pain flashes across her face. while a part of your brain hungers to blabber on, nonsense nonsense nonsense malice forever more, however, your theatrics stop right there - haven't you already played enough of the villain, anyway?

doesn't matter though. you get told that Miss Harumi - through a different nurse - very coincidentally applied for some vacation time, the next day.

you don't react much, other than think, coincidence or not, that's to be expected. like a fact.

 

 

 

 

the newest nurse assigned to you - an intern, like you half-figured - is a bit too determined, somewhat like Miss Harumi.

"—and I was like, man, you're just ridiculous! And he goes, well, yeah, I gotta be, what's life without doing or trying things? Nothing's worth it at all if you just don't go for it! And I know that's just, I guess, cheap in a way, but I kinda found that cool? Like, yeah, this is why I'm friends with you, that kind of feeling. This is why you're so cool to me—"

" _Yeaaaah,_ okaaaay." where there should be a joke about his hardheadedness is instead a bored intonation. you try to make your eyes bore through the nurse, a heavy sort of gaze in feeling, but only go as far as to stare at his bushy eyebrows. "You done now?"

Nakamura blinks for a bit, before giving a stupid thumbs-up and rifling a bit through a messenger bag that he keeps carrying around, despite hospital policy. "I guess so, yeah. Just one thing."

more bag rifling. you raise an eyebrow. "Like?"

he grins and pulls out a glossy blu-ray case highlighted in blood pink.

"I thought you'd get bored or whatever being in here all day, and you got a TV right there, so I thought like, y'know, why not watch some Danganronpa with me—"

 

 

 

 

Miss Mayu - an elderly nurse, somehow still working despite being far into what should be her retirement - slides over a mug of hot chocolate with melting marshmallows.

"I knew that Nakamura boy would be trouble." a sigh, heavy with the years. despite the static in your head and the utter, wretched feeling of weakness that wracks through your body, you suddenly feel a blaze of empathy for the old lady. "I  _told_ those idiots not to think about his parents, but no, of course. A son of a board member ought to be taken in, it's only just fair, isn't it?"

you don't trust yourself to speak, so you just nod. Miss Mayu looks over you with a critical eye, before shaking her head. she understands.

"At least they've been bankrupted," she mumbles, low enough that she probably doesn't want to be heard. but your ears are keen, unfortunately, so you overhear the mumbling and curl the blanket tighter around you. it's summer, a part of your brain muses.

it's summer, and yet you're so cold.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

("he's not taking any visitors for now."

you frown at the receptionist. this is new. "why?"

"he's just not taking any." a pause. "doctor's orders, really."

you frown harder. despite wanting to argue your way in regardless, you get the inklings of a reason - and it's not a nice one. ultimately, you make a reluctant turn and leave. on your way out, your eye meets the steely ones of an old lady in a doctor's coat, but it's not a memorable moment, so it doesn't stay with you.)

 

 


	2. magic (i): zarrow shuffle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hinamizawa aside - the countryside is supposed to be good for healing, right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title comes from [a card trick of the same name](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zarrow_shuffle), where one appears to be doing a normal riffle shuffle but the order of the cards doesn't actually change.

 

 

 

"i'll be fine, maki, you don't have to—"

the girl snorts as she stuffs the notebook into your coat pockets. "I know that. I know we all will - we've gone through too much to not."

you smile back at the crude optimism. behind her, saihara keeps adjusting the brim of his new hat. it looks wrong on him, you said, and he had agreed, and harukawa had agreed too. the thickening crowd of reporters and knuckle-headed fans outside would beg to differ, though. your smile falls a bit even as you try to remember - just for now, just for now, be strong, be strong. eventually, this whole thing will be done with, like water under a bridge made from the ruins of babel.

"Take care, Himiko." harukawa hums, giving you a firm, final pat on the shoulder. saihara stops fidgeting with the hat and gives you a quick hug. the camera flashes are intense for a moment - but if you can ignore that, you think that for sure, you're going to miss this. "Give us a call whenever you need to."

"mm."

 

 

 

 

for the next several hours of your trip, the notebook is warm and dangerous in your pocket.

beloved, and at the same time, too precious to keep near. like prometheus' fire, burning your fingers, and burning itself, in a way. at the first opportunity you get, you make sure to keep the notebook under the safest lock and key you have. you don't want to lose this.

 

 

 

 

you're not sure what you expected, but the bare walls and the distant view of neighborhood green is somewhere between expected and distasteful. that is to say, not familiar, just a guess that you're not right on, simply.

"we're still making arrangements with the school, so you can spend the next couple of days just getting used to things." the man - uncle? your uncle? - says as he ruffles your hair with a twinkle in his eye. "it's been a while since you've visited us, y'know? everything's gonna be way different than it used to be."

"i see," slips out, meek and unthinking. you get the most jarring urge to cringe at yourself, despite how unassuming the words are, how they should and could be anyway. the feeling mustn't show on your face though, since the man just chuckles and ruffles your hair again, leaving you be with a soft close of the door and the sparrow-dotted silence that rushes in through the open window. your eyes flicker to the peaceful nothing outside for a moment, a moment so full of stillness. you sigh.

the small suitcase in your hands gets set down, finally. you're here for hell knows how long - might as well get comfortable.

 

 

 

 

the town isn't all that big. there isn't much at all to see, much less to speak of.

your feet take you around dirt roads with no direction, around small pockets of traditional houses and more modern, at most three-storey buildings home to local businesses and gathering halls. your feet take you around untamed fields and keep you on the edges of the forests that decorate the more mountainous features in the distance. your feet take you everywhere and nowhere, almost convincing you that it would be so easy to just get lost, to throw your shoes off and run and disappear and never come back, never ever ever—

a standard ringtone hums from your pocket. you hesitate, staring at the carving of a weathered jizo at a crossroad. in the end, though, you answer it. your uncle tells you that dinner will be your aunt's special curry, spiced just the way you like it. you tell him that you will be home as soon as possible.

and you don't tell him, after hanging up and chewing on your lip, that you don't like curry.

 

 

 

 

the uniform looks like a uniform.

you're not sure what you expected. nonetheless, it feels somewhere between unexpected and distasteful.

that is to say, when you genuinely thought about going back to school, you thought of murderous bears and costume uniforms and an unrealistic reality. you thought of a time that feels a bit like a dream - something that happened and passed and almost feels like walking on clouds. until you remember the rest of the dream, with the pink blood and the dead bodies and executions and the lies and  _im so tired, i just want to die, but tenko did that for me once didnt she_ and you immediately fall through the water vapor, throat tight and knees close to giving way to a sick sense of vertigo.

you hang the uniform on a hanger, neatening out the odd crease or two in the sailor collar and pleat skirt. the skirt makes you think of shirogane somewhat, which is a  _bit_  unpleasant, you suppose - but you're honestly more thankful that it isn't a western style uniform, really.

you don't feel like wearing another blazer for the rest of your life.

 

 

 

 

you take one step i—

" _ahh!_  it's himiko-chan!" 

your one step falters.

"what—"

"holy crap, we got a  _celebrity!_ "

"quick, take a pic, or a video, or—"

you manage to resume walking. the teacher yells at the class to calm down with the paparazzi. of course, nothing does stop them.

a sigh is withheld. you stop by the teacher's side, head a bit bowed as you idly thumb the strap of your school bag. you doubt you need an introduction, and you're right - the teacher just points you over to the second-last seat by the windows ("oh my god, she got the protagonist seat! this is so  _anime—_ ") which you shuffle over to without a word but a small nod.

you're not looking forward to lunch break.

 

 

 

 

"it's going to be summer vacation soon, so to be honest, this isn't exactly the best time to be transferring in. but..."

miss noriko takes a moment to enjoy her cigarette with a sheer disregard for fire safety rules. she scribbles something down on some paperwork, things you don't catch because you're too busy turning your nose away from the smell of smoke, as well as from the faintest reminders of a sham ritual lingering on the edges of your memory, waiting to be remembered in its full gore and glory. you end up quite surely frowning for the duration of your stay in the teacher's lounge.

"—well, a few teachers will still be in town even in the summer, so if you got questions, you can ask them." the lady tears out a page from a ruled notepad, quickly writing down what looks like a couple of addresses and numbers and names. "the extra homework you get over the break should also help with catching up, hopefully."

"thank you," you mumble, then internally wince at how you sound, again.

shrugging, the teacher hands you the folded page and makes a shooing motion. you dutifully do as you're told and not told, an awful kind of autopilot, and head for the door.

"ah, wait. one more thing." you pause, looking back. you wish that you didn't.

she points one a sharp, manicured finger at you, a bored look still on her face. "do something about your neck, will you? you stand out enough as is."

 

 

 

 

cicadas cry, until they don't.

you don't know how you survived summer. you survived in the beginning because there were just two weeks left, and then your classmates - do you have to call them that? saihara and harukawa feel so much more like classmates, even if none of that was a real school experience - had to deal with their own unchangeable plans for the season. that left you and a few other students that you never run into in town, you in particular busied with piles upon piles of books and aptitude tests, sheer nonsense to remember where you were in a more normal world, once.

it wasn't overwhelming work though, in spite of how at times you got confused with the facts on paper and the facts in your head. (no, no, no such thing as a ridiculous mass hunt for prodigy kids, no such thing as a school for the absolute gifted, despair and hope are indeed things of philosophy and  _fiction_ —) you catch up to where you were and who you used to be rather easily.

which is why you don't know how summer ended. everything in that time was on autopilot. yumeno himiko disappeared and someone else reappeared, puppeteering you around, living their life again.

when the cicadas die, and the trees turn orange - on the day before school starts again, you think about the half-forgotten classmates that you're going to be surrounded with, people requesting autographs and selfies and asking every invasive little question in the book. things like your opinion on being a danganronpa character, the other characters, the executions, the ending, i thought you were great, you sucked, can you say your catchphrase, i have your breakdown scenes bookmarked, oh, show us one of your magic tricks, please!

_except they're not tricks they're magic real magic it's magic it was real it wasn't fake everything was **real don't treat me like this I'm real!**_

your hands are unsteady, shaking wildly as you hastily open the window in your bedroom. fresh air eats at you. it's easy, you think. it's easy! it's so easy, just lift yourself onto the sill and dangle your legs over and use the momentum of a hard push to—

you hit your head on the wall beside the window. the pain is sharp and, well, painful. but it forces you to even out your breaths on reflex.

forces you to stop, stop everything, just for a moment.

this isn't the best way to do anything, but it's good enough, for now. you squeeze your eyes shut, and sink to the floor. when you open them again, the sun is setting and your aunt is knocking on your door, calling you for dinner. your favorite curry, today.

"It's not my favorite." you mumble to no one. better to admit than to hide, you recollect - better to be honest once than to be hypocritical forever. a good lesson that you want to hold onto, even though its teacher isn't so nice to remember in comparison. you sigh again, and get to your feet.

"...alright! i'll be down soon."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(to your greatest misfortune, Nakamura hasn't been kicked out.

the most peace you've gotten is that he isn't allowed to come around unless it's some sort of emergency. not that it helps, at all, never will you think, since he likes to flaunt the rules regardless.

you fold your pillow over your head as you hear the intern rambling - much too loudly and much, much too excitedly - as he passes through the hallway outside. the pillow muffles a lot, but not everything - you chew the inside of your mouth as you pick up a few keywords. the exact topic isn't clear, but he already mentioned season 53. that's more than enough for you.

you wish you really were dead.)

 

 


	3. trick (ii): hangman paradox

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alive or dead, humans are beholden to fate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title is another name for [the unexpected hanging paradox](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unexpected_hanging_paradox), which is premised on a thought experiment where the date of a execution is to be a surprise to the victim - but, as such, the victim believes the execution will not be scheduled as doing so would mean an exact date has been decided, which thus makes the date known and therefore no longer a surprise. however, the executioner comes knocking regardless, surprising the victim as declared.
> 
> the 'first sunrise' mentioned at the end of the chapter is a reference to hatsuhinode - the tradition of seeing the first sunrise of a new year, which is considered auspicious and also accompanied by other traditional practices related to greeting and enjoying the firsts of a new year.

 

 

 

you used to be a writer.

somewhere, in that foggy, foggy past. in some world that you recognize as yours but isn't, in another world that isn't any different than the world you lived in for the entire length of a tv season. you remember - writing, words on scrap paper, ink splotches on the nibbled corners of your fingernails, colored marker smudging fingerprints on various surfaces. you remember writing a lot, everyday, for what seemed like a few hours at the least.

you remember what you wrote, in fragments. childish tales of flying deer and talking moons scribbled in crayon during elementary, awkward love poems posted online to scathing review, an amateur psychoanalysis of the survivors from season 49 disguised as a literary epic nearing the largest of word counts. you remember your fiction with the revolted vividness of a person unable to determine what makes the career of a wordsmith so promising in the first place. at this point, you certainly don't know it, you don't remember why you loved pen and scripture as blindly as you did before.

all you do remember now, remembering best, is your latest masterpieces - teasing clues left in a virtual playground, the entire script of a trial written within a bare minimum of hours,  _this world belongs to ouma kokichi,_ the warm and harsh feeling in your palms as you whittled away at stone, laughing, at times soft, at times hoarse, at times just laughing, an empty note, _~~to whomever reads this~~    ~~to my most beloved Saihara~~   this is (not) a suicide note._

a part of you, even now, gets a strange kick out of the final letter you wrote. wasn't the title pretty funny?

in a way.

the truth can be a really bad joke to listen to.

 

 

 

 

icarus will burn until october, at the very most. august feels far from that deadline.

so, for now, you just have to deal with lying in your room like a living statue, uncomfortable warmth gathering between the bundled sheets and your backside. once in a while, you have to wipe the sweat in your hairline as you trace random patterns, random shapes, random constellations, random clouds in the ceiling. whatever can keep your mind bored but placated, numb and not dizzy with thought.

you're starting to see why some people would say that thinking is too hard. since it isn't hard per say - in fact, thinking is easy, too easy for you - but rather, it's tiring. tedious. terrible.

you didn't ask to be this sort of person. you don't want to be this sort of person. during the auditions, you—

your eyes immediately flicker to the window. in the unveiled sunshine, you see the buzz of summer's hellspawns dancing against the glass, around the nearest foliage, enjoying the ungodly heat and humidity out there. better them than you, you think, really. you can't be  _that_ mindless, as much as you would like to be.

which is why, as boring and quiet as this place is, locking yourself in here was the best plan you ever made. far away from civilization, not far away enough from that stupid show - but still. not all plans run smooth, as you very much know.

this plan, though, has the least holes you can find. nothing can go _too_ wrong.

 

 

 

 

footprints in front of your door.

you trace their vague shadow from under the door gap. they aren't familiar. their steps don't match any of the nurses or doctors, on-shift or otherwise.

for a moment, your mind spins - sees the false interior of a false spaceship, a messy dorm room, you stole a lock from the warehouse and made sure to use it to secure the door to your room, but you know, you also managed to find a lock-picking set in that same warehouse, and anyway, anyway, Akamatsu also got her murder weapon from the same place, who is to say that someone won't find a way to barge in and murder you—

the stranger outside your door shuffles their feet away, after a long moment of nothing. you let out a breath you didn't know you were holding.

since those footsteps aren't familiar, even now, even after a shallow search through your memories, you pause to do the stupid thing and force your brain awake, clear and proper, just to remember them - for next time, you figure. for if there is one. for when there is one.

you don't go to sleep that night. now that's a familiar thing, comparatively.

 

 

 

 

you return to being complaisant. this is enough. you want this to be enough.

nothing else is worth being alive for.

 

 

 

 

the footsteps return twice.

once again, as august is blazing towards an end. the footsteps linger outside your door, hesitance clear from the shadow alone. you were almost too engrossed in counting the occasional off-color patch or mark on the walls to notice the footsteps, but if it weren't for that, you wouldn't have been awake and sitting upright enough to notice them.

so, you sit on your bed, cross-legged and inquisitive, letting silence stretch and spin into threads of sunlight gold. a speck of dust drifts to tickle your nose. you sniffle, a bit too loud on purpose, and watch the shadow shuffle back on some kind of reflex. maybe it's a serial killer after all? the thought is almost funny enough to laugh at, and you almost, almost would - but the most you manage is just a plain, brittle smile. you're half-tempted to call out the stranger outside your door for its cowardice, but don't, and that too is a form of cowardice, isn't it?

you decide to frame it more as an attempt to keep things not-boring. there isn't any fun in hurrying a surprise.

but the shadow also deduces your thoughts - or rather doesn't and it's a convenient coincidence - as, like last time, it soon turns and walks away. you try not to think too much of it, until they return a couple of days later, at the start of september. and like its previous visits in august, the footsteps do nothing but stand outside your door like you're the great wall of china, or something.

it's been a few days since its previous visit. more than twenty four hours of staring and thinking and tying rope upon rope around the thing called a whim. you huff - a part of you wondering whether it will regret the future to thus come, whether the future will lead to anything meaningful regardless. it already doesn't mean a lot to you, so you hum a soft note to yourself, set your eyes on the blurred shape of brown shoes under the door, and -

 _thump._ something hits against the door, from the other side.

you didn't even do anything, much less say something. nothing follows through, either.

...what was this supposed to be? some miserable attempt at establishing dominance? an aborted plan to make you paranoid? a full-grown baby learning how to knock on a door for the first time? the possibilities are ridiculous to pointless, and all of them make you snort an ugly sound under your breath.

this is stupid, you think, and feel a bit of an old mask sliding on.

"Whoever's out there," you say, loud and clear, singsong like doomsday - the stranger takes a reflexive step back - "You sure are being rude, you know! I get that my face is apparently very cute and all, enough to make hearts flutter or whatever, but that's really no reason why you have to stalk me from behind a door. At least show your dumb face so I can laugh at it in person."

you don't get a response. the feet shift uneasily, as if their owner isn't sure how to react. not a lot of people tend to, you've noticed. nonetheless, you do wonder for their patience - some people, like Miss Mayu, are almost saintly in their tolerance for your antics, while some others, like your pseudo-classmates, can have little to no concern for you. you wonder if the person outside the door is closer to being like the former, just considering the kindest way to respond, or like everyone else, ready to be dismissive at best or already gritting their teeth with irritation.

(you do not think of Saihara, who went above and beyond expectations, who cared, cared cared cared, cared to have teatime with a lying troublemaker, cared after you nearly stabbed your fingers red, _cared._  even he, like the others, ultimately did not care enough to see through your villainous act. and you didn't learn - didn't _want_ to know, such cowardice - if his attention was momentous, a rare fluke of technology, something that will fade in the coming years.

what a laugh.) and you do laugh.

something quiet, muffled with barbs. but not quiet enough for the stranger outside your door to stop shuffling their feet in some anxiety, coming to an unfortunate standstill. and silence stretches and spins into twilight gold.

soon, you hear footsteps departing. and that's just that.

 

 

 

 

you would like to say you aren't disappointed, but the thing is, you absolutely are.

you're just not sure whether you're disappointed with the stranger or with yourself. or who you ought to be more disappointed in, at least. perhaps the stranger, you think - you've been a disappointment since day one, so why not spare some of it for someone else, for a change of pace?

the thing is, though. the thing is - 

you need to be right. your guess has to be correct. otherwise you're just making nonsensical assumptions for no good reason, and honestly, your track record of that hasn't exactly been the best in recent times.

but you would also like to think that your brain, despite your voluntary isolation here, hasn't turned into rotten mush. your heart is already rotten, so it would just be a nice thing if nothing else were. and if your brain is still functional enough, if the sparse clues you caught are enough - if you aren't wrong, simply put, then.

you find yourself mulling over the conclusion, over and over and over.

nah, you think, ultimately. _nah,_ you think harder, pulling the blanket over your head on another night. this can't be right, you think, reality isn't some magical story where these sorta things can just happen.

 

 

 

 

autumn demands its tribute before winter arrives, unrelenting. you hear nurses chatter about the local festivities for a time, and sooner than you think, the chattering gets replaced with bitter curses about the temperature just dropping and dropping. the only thing keeping this idyllic hell from truly freezing over are the mountains in the distance, everyone concludes. you're not enough of a meteorologist to say whether that's right or wrong.

it doesn't matter, though. anywhere you go might just be hell, you think.

and cementing that fact is the day it snows, heavy and unceasing.

Miss Mayu passes by your room with a mug of hot chocolate and marshmallows that she forces into your hands before you can try some roundabout way to refuse. she also gives you a card, a strange sentiment in her eye for a moment, and tells you to enjoy the holiday mood as much as you can. you scoff, and the elderly lady gives you an elderly look of disapproval before gently messing up your messy hair in what feels like a huge break against usual patient-nurse protocol for your ward.

"I mean it," she says as she leaves, glancing between you and the card. "Christmas comes only once a year, boy."

"Yeah, so I can always just wait until next year," you say, shrugging. "They're all the same anyway."

you earn a sad sigh, and a soft slide of the door closed. you're half-tempted to ignore the card and the hot chocolate, things you didn't ask for nor deserve, but there's no point in spurning this. there are no cameras here - no dark desires to appease, no weaknesses to hide. you take a sip of the drink, sweet warmth spreading through for a blissful minute, before you take a quick peek at the card's contents. 

this is how the season passes, simply. and you thus greet another mind-numbing year.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(the thing is. you're a rotten liar.

those footsteps, from the very start - they were familiar. they  _are_ familiar. remember, you know them, somewhere, faint, this person might be -

_I don't have much of an allowance to spend, so I can only send this card. Maybe that's for the best?_

_Anyway._

_Merry Christmas, Ouma. Don't freeze to death before the first sunrise, okay?_ ) 

 

 


	4. magic (ii): ambitious card

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Food is where the family is at, or something like that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I ACCIDENTALLY POSTED THIS CHAPTER LIKE TWICE ALREADY HOW KJSAUSKHUUSFFSUSKFKF please pretend i never ever EVER once published this chapter before i was supposed to
> 
> chapter title comes from [a card trick of the same name](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambitious_Card), where a card picked at random somehow manages to reappear at the top of the deck.

 

 

 

spoons and chopsticks at the dinner table.

you nibble on a piece of carrot, spice floating through as do words and small laughs that you don't bother to listen to. quiet, quiet, shrinking, shriveling away.

with that sort of mood, perhaps the conversation that followed shouldn't have been too surprising.

your uncle finishes his plate and turns to you. "shizuka," he starts, and you jolt in a way that makes him look a bit concerned. you lift your head nonetheless, keeping an attentive look. a real mage creates believers, after all. "it's been a few months since you've moved here, hasn't it?"

you nod slowly. he continues with a light clearing of his throat - "i know this is a little too soon, but you said you didn't have any plans beyond finishing your schooling here, so i— we were all thinking, maybe. maybe you could stay here, after you graduate? your mother is here, you see, and we thought it might do her some good if you stayed with her. of course, if you were already thinking about going back to tokyo in a few years, then..."

and on and on he goes. as with most of dinner, you don't listen. or rather, you just - can't?

it's like your ears stopped working after a point. right after he mentioned your mother.

your head is filled with twinkling, tinkering sounds. mechanical memories implanted, shifting about as you unconsciously touch upon them. you remember having a mother, but also don't. during that long, long game - whenever you thought of your mother back then, you felt something fond, but lukewarm. something persistent, but vague. it took you a while to realize that you couldn't picture a face, which you attributed to the whole mess of the show and its flashback lights.

you still can't picture a person, when you think of a mother, real or fake. you're suddenly not sure whether you want to.

strange.

"—i'll go," your mouth says, despite the contradiction in your head, just as your uncle mentions where your mother is living right now. the man blinks with some surprise, then gives you a wide smile and a pat on the head. you try not to dwell too long on why the other people at the table, like your aunt, seem quite relieved to hear it.

 

 

 

 

school will start in a little over a month. you decide to make a visit before the world becomes busy and bothersome.

"she's in room 409, on the third floor, c-wing." the receptionist pauses to type something. "a nurse will be here shortly to show you the way."

you wait at one of the lounge benches before a tired-looking nurse -  _momozuchi miyabi,_  says the id hanging from her lanyard - approaches you with hushed words and soft steps. she doesn't say too much beyond the necessary as she guides you through the hospital, and leaves you in front of your mother's room with even less than that. even so, left in a hallway filled with dimming sun and utter silence, you feel much too aware of the nurse's absence.

you take a deep breath, knock on the door, and walk in after a long minute or three.

 

 

 

 

spoons and chopsticks at the dinner table.

you nibble on a piece of cold tofu, as your small cousin recounts some story about hunting for frogs with his friends. you would listen, because children are always worth listening to, but you can't muster the energy for it, for some reason.

 

 

 

 

for a moment, the bed seems to be home to a corpse.

you take a second to blink and look around - the room feels a bit small, its airy space overwhelmed with machines and wires that are familiar for multiple, all unpleasant reasons. a frown pulls at your face as you close the door behind you, taking slight note of how the occasional speck of dust dances under the sunlight streaming in through the open window. isn't a hospital supposed to be the cleanest place on earth?

or maybe that was all just toujou's work, actually.

despite how quietly you keep your movements, the woman on the bed turns her eyes towards you with the suddenness of a ghost coming back to life. her gaze is blank - you don't see anything whatsoever. it makes something inside you curdle, like when your aunt says she made your favorite foods as your uncle smiles quaintly, like when people around town used to swirl their heads at you and say,  _shizuka-chan, you look so different now, but i guess it's true when they say that people don't ever change on the inside!_

on reflex, you smile back. performers can't trouble their audience. the woman doesn't even blink in return. with an almost familiar, fake confidence, you walk over to her bedside and keep your hands as relaxed as possible by your side.

"hi," you say.

there's nothing, at first. but then, eventually, a soft, perhaps kind - "who are you?"

you open your mouth to say  _your daughter,_  but the words don't come out. something in her eyes feels like a warning - an omen of something unwanted. you close your mouth, mull over an imaginary dictionary, and say instead - "shizuka. it's me."

her eyes go wide with the warmest light. your smile smooths out into something more natural. you want to scream.

 

 

 

 

spoons and chopsticks at the dinner table.

you stare at your miso soup for the longest time. your cousin is the only one to notice, tugging at your sleeve with an innocent question. once the rest of the table realizes, your uncle lightly chides your aunt for making the soup - "you know how she was before, she never liked that sorta thing," - and, if only to make sure you don't hear another word more _,_  you drink the soup. you don't taste any of it, and tell your aunt that it was very delicious, you were just lost in thought, don't worry, that's how i am, see?

your aunt responds with a small laugh. "oh yes, that's right. you've always been such a quiet child."

"quiet, but with a hidden spark, that's for sure." your uncle chuckles as he picks through his boiled radishes and lotus roots. "no one would've expected her to audition for that show, much less get into it! a real surprise when i heard about it, really."

"like mother, like daughter, huh?"

 

 

 

 

"shizuka," the woman - mother? your mother? - croons as she combs a bony hand through your hair. "you've grown up so much."

you bow your head and hum a plain sound. "i know."

the room goes silent. your mother continues to idle away - her eyes are glassy, reflecting the permanent red of your hair as an uncertain blur. you wonder whether she really recognizes you. according to a candidate file for the show, you had long brown hair before, the kind that gets highlighted into a romantic tint of honey under the setting sun.

you watch your mother with pursed lips. you didn't inherit your former hair color from her. nor your current one.

"shizuka," she murmurs, seeing something, seeing nothing, "you're just lovely. don't leave. okay?"

hands on your lap, curling inwards. you don't want to remember the past, but it lurches towards you - you don't say anything, but there are words rotting like malice in your mouth.

 

 

 

 

what did you have for dinner today? what did you hear at the table? what did you say to them?

 

 

 

 

your weave through the hallways and want to become a ghost.

instead, your feet just keep shuffling on, on and on, wandering through random wings of the building like you have somewhere to be and it's nowhere here. you finally put a name to the citrus scent that accompanies you throughout these hospital visits - some off-brand disinfectant, you think.

your sneakers squeak a bit along the seamless floor. you keep staring at the laces, wondering if you can perform a spell where they undo themselves on their own. as you're figuring out the chant for that, you keep walking in random directions until you hit a wall, literally and figuratively, at which point you wonder whether you should just transform into a potted plant, right here and right now. it's a very good and tempting idea, except you don't think the spell would be convincing enough to hold forever, and you almost, _almost_  (but don't, not really) hate transformation magic these days. 

you sigh. you won, but you're not really a winner. no one was.

deciding to go back, you lift your head and look around to orient yourself. as you do so, you spot a nameplate for the nearest door. you blink.

very slowly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

today's been an exhausting day, hasn't it? dinner will do you some good.

("Yumeno-chan, did you already forget what I said? You can't lie to a liar like me! It doesn't work that way.")

 

 


	5. trick (iii): schrödinger's cat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time doesn't exist in a closed box. To know the past or the present or the future, someone needs to open it and look inside.

 

 

 

and you fail.

and you fail and you fail and you fail and you fail and you fail and you fail and you fail and you fail and you fail

you fail to win and you fail to win and you fail to lose, in a way.

the last one should be contradictory but for some reason, all you can comprehend is sterile light and cold metal, the taste of nausea and blood and the words _nee-san is gonna kill me_ and then the thought _aren’t I already dead?_

that snaps you awake. to the rush of blood bringing memory and awareness to your brain, your heart pounding, beating, alive and warm and it doesn't hurt. none of that prickling coldness and numbness from the poison nor that inflammatory fire from your organs violently betraying you, siding with some malignant instinct to stay alive while picking a losing fight against death. you chose to die, damn it, why are you here, why are you here, why did you—

a man in a lab coat smiles down at you. there's something bright in his eyes and words being spoken. you don't know what he's saying. hollow sounds and rubbish. you don't want to listen. but your hands won't listen to you right now either - they remain strapped down to your sides, electrodes still stuck to your skin, it's uncomfortable, yes, but we have plenty of data to show that sometimes, contestants will try to reenact their actions in the simulation in real life, a bit like mumbling things from a dream or even sleepwalking, and of course, these simulations are about killing and all; we can't have anyone accidentally killing themselves and becoming a corpse in real life, right?

the man punctuates his question with a laugh and something about how it doesn't matter because everyone signs a no-liability contract for the worse case scenario. you don't laugh back.

 

 

 

 

the next season is accepting applicants and you won’t lie, you won’t lie to yourself, that you downloaded the forms and collected the necessary documents within the first two hours of the news going live. your hands shake a bit. you feel like you’re getting to know for real, that feeling of doing what you mustn’t, the thrill of it. satisfaction for a reward to come and the risks overcame, a bet made safe because your timing was right, your luck was good, the world really isn’t set against you after all—

you breathe. scan what you need, double-check you have everything. remember that you haven’t submitted your application. not yet, nothing has happened, yet. don’t get cocky. you’re just a little nobody in a population count running into the millions and billions. what are the chances of you being selected? the midnight breeze murmurs past your open window at that question, almost soothing, almost mocking. you sniffle at the familiar, perpetual taste of salt and blue and remember that, regardless of the chances, you want to be someone else for a change.

so you cross your fingers and click submit, a deep relief burying into your chest when you receive a message about your successful application. there is a passing thought on whether the other contestants have ever felt like you do right now. and there’s something in that thought itself - something that blurs the boundary between the words 'contestants' and 'applicants' for a moment.

between characters and people - as if they were separate labels, and not the exact same thing in their origins.

ultimately though, you didn’t think about it too much before heading right to bed - and now, several months later, Ouma Kokichi wonders if the character designer for season 53 is secretly an esper or something, because there’s far too much irony and far too much to think about in regards to his own design and who he was before all this.

you know, with a clinical, clear mind - clearer than your head has ever been in the god awful fifteen years you’ve existed and some more - that this is mere speculation and, most likely, without a doubt, you’re just overthinking over what amounts to nothing more than coincidences. far too many coincidences and far too many relations between your past and your present, that is.

birds chirp outside as dawn brightens. you cracked open the window at some point and tasted a sliver of fresh air, flavored with tokyo’s brand of smoke and concrete. as you lean on the sill, you chew on a nail - a habit you never had but is now ingrained like the taste of grape soda in your mouth. you blink at nothing, and remember a boy who has no likes or dislikes in comparison because he can’t displease anyone; if pushed to say _something,_ he would just admit a preference for milk tea (with no sweeteners because nee-san once tried to follow some crazy diet and temptation had to be driven away by all means possible; there couldn’t be a single crystal of sugar in the cabinets).

you chew on the nail harder. hope for a second that it breaks past the skin and the calcium and bleeds. hope for affirmation. a part of you thinks that you need nothing - one inhale, one exhale, you’re here. you’re alive. you have memories and instincts that belong to a particular name, a particular identity, and that person is—you.

you don’t really need affirmation. you’re you, no point in thinking too much about that.

(except you do and the past and the fiction are blurring into the present, muddled, your too-clear mind tainted by the anxieties of the boy from before, and you worry, you worry in a way that feels a little different from how you worried in the killing game, you worry and worry and worry and know _this is how it is_ for a fact and think right after _but something’s wrong or something will go wrong and everyone’s going to be mad at me or they already are and_ it’s over, it’s all over, the conclusion is here and it feels like everything ended like a big fat mistake.

and this isn’t even getting into the deeper problem that you killed someone and then murdered yourself. which, virtual or not, is a subject you aren’t going to even _touch_ upon, ever.)

 

 

 

 

unfortunately, your given name is Kokichi for a reason.

Danganronpa Co. has a lot of branches and properties around the country, but its main one is in tokyo. its headquarters is a massive fifteen-floors building with its interconnected corridors built into the tilted shape of a 'D' - or a semi-circle for those who like to think people can't be _that_ egoistic.

and how does the company occupy fifteen floors of the largest real estate space one could hope to buy in the capital? by making its entire operations fit within those floors, of course. accounts, human resources, public relations, media production, graphics and design, research and development - the higher-ups get their own offices in the brightest, biggest rooms on the top floor, while several floors below, the simulation pods for the show are kept in minimalist laboratories overseen by technicians and on-site emergency responders idling behind thick glass.

the floor just above that one is the rehabilitation wing. here, participants and survivors - and isn't that _fun,_  learning that a distinction even exists among the employees - are watched by a full-time crew of medical professionals before they can be deemed ready to return to society. the surveillance should be a bother, but having understood to some extent that you were being watched for weeks, you focus on getting around it instead.

and luck being a meager thing with you, you run into problems, sometimes.

one of those problems happens on an early morning, as you sit at a table with a mug of too-sweet hot chocolate, staring at the softening marshmallows sinking into it. a dream drove you to take a walk at six in the morning - and that walk, or lack thereof, brought you to one of the cushy lounges decorated to force group interactions.

you had been very good at avoiding these lounges until that point - or at least, when there were other people in them. the lounges were the only reliable place to get snacks without the nurses' disapproval, so you did sometimes sneak into them when no one was around. at an ungodly hour in the morning, a normal person wouldn't be awake, much less be in here. at an ungodly hour in the morning, with sleep deprivation, you are also not awake enough to realize you aren't the only one in this building with off-tune sleep schedules.

too engrossed in keeping your head at peace - away and empty, thoughts at bay - you hear the footsteps too late. a half-familiar boy with a notebook walks in, rubbing at dark circles for a second before he notices he isn't alone.

you would have grinned at him, instinctive and defensive, if you didn't react like a deer in the headlights.

"Oh," Saihara echoes, at a similar loss of what to do.

as much as you want to, you can't smile back, can't spin a wild story to distract him - can't build a single barrier between you and him. something screeches rebellion in your heart.

habits from before - before before - take mindless control. you turn to the windows and sip at your drink in delicate silence. nothing happens. you hear the soft shuffle of slippers on piled carpet, the muffled scrape of chair legs, and arms leaning on the table. the table that you're sitting at.

you very much consider just choking on a marshmallow right there and then.

"Um." your attention changes coats like a traitor. you meet a pair of grey eyes - oh wow, his eyes  _are_ grey in real life, though more steely than olive-tinged - staring with unthinking intensity. just like how he tends to look when investigating or arguing through a trial, though the effect feels twice-fold from how his features are a little sharper, less soft like in the show. habits from now - now now - keep your hands steady and your face unflinching.

you take one more sip of your hot chocolate. Saihara watches, as if searching, before he deflates from finding nothing.

"N-Never mind, sorry, I thought..." he shakes his head a bit and mumbles something that could have been another apology or not.

the boy opens the notebook he brought along, and begins to write something on its ruled pages. you would try to peek, but you don't want to show any more signs of being interested - more interested - than you ought to be. you let the quiet of the morning drift between the two of you like strangers at a coffee shop.

that is to say, the mood feels like a substantial lot of nothing. an empty but comfortable atmosphere. even so, something cinnamon-warm lingers on the fringes of what could be - this somewhat-stalemate doesn't need to stay like this. but it does. it stays that way, it _has_ to. you want it to. you watch the sky outside turn rosy and gold, unlike your future, and accept that this is the best it ought to be. that this is ideal, that you won't accept exceptions.

you lie with complete honesty - there is no love lost from someone who could ever be as callous and cruel as you forced your hand to be, even if it feels like play-pretend in hindsight. that isn't an excuse. you shouldn't be excused.

your mug comes to a quiet rest on the table. one eye sneaking a glance - there's a shitty doodle of a cat in the corner of one page.

"Have you heard of Schrodinger's Cat?"

Saihara's writing comes to a stop. you keep your face neutral, your voice soft, and your half-trembling hands under the table.

 _stupid stupid stupid!_ \- you think, ready to bolt for it, until Saihara blinks back with pure curiosity and no suspicion. absolute trust. your hands stop trembling and instead claw wrinkles into the fabric of your pants.

"I've read about it," he says, slowly, as he always does when the gears in his head are moving at full speed towards an unspecified conclusion. "I remember— before I became a participant, I played a lot of visual novels, so I have a good grasp of the concept. The idea was... that a cat is put in a box with a lethal poison that may or may not leak, but until the box is opened, the outcome won't be known. So until someone observes what happened to the cat in the box, the cat is considered both alive and dead." a pause for eye contact. "Right?"

against your entire will, you feel your lips twitch into a smile. you suppress it with a calming sip of hot chocolate and a too-cold reminder about Saihara's audition tape from the livestream of the sixth trial. Saihara as he is now - it isn't a perfect guarantee. he might think to return to that obsessed fan with a disgusting preference for violent mysteries. it might be today, tomorrow, sooner or later. you don't want to see him if (when, maybe) it happens.

"That's right, but also wrong," you say, tempering the excess upset out of your voice.

"Did I get the details wrong?"

"Sort of."

warmth encroaches. you blame the rising sun. a hint of cinnamon wafts through the space between you and him.

"The thing about the catbox," you start, swirling the last marshmallow in the mug, "is that it's supposed to be stupid and impossible."

your response is a pair of furrowed eyebrows. "I get why it would be impossible in a sense, but... stupid? Why would it be—"

"Because it's impossible." you take a moment to sip and chew on the marshmallow. it melts into the side of your mouth, lukewarm and powder-sweet. "The cat can't be both dead and alive - that's impossible. Which is why this experiment is stupid at all for believing as much."

"But wasn't that the idea, precisely? The experiment says that we won't know whether or not the poison leaked inside the box until we open it. Thus the cat occupies a liminal state - a transitional one between being surely alive before being put in a box, and the future possibility of being still alive or now dead. As long as we don't know the truth, the cat remains in that state of staying alive or becoming dead... and so, is both until we determine it to be one or the other..."

Saihara starts to frown a bit. you try not to wonder too hard - too much or at all - about what his brain is leading him to.

instead, you stare at the dark stains in your mug, trying not to think too hard about those either. "Mmm, yeah, I guess that's the fun, sorta philosophical appeal of it. But that's not how quantum mechanics works in the end, and this experiment is supposed to show that."

you finish the last of your drink, undissolved cocoa coating the back of your tongue. even so, words come easy, lightly, like friends meeting over coffee - "Back then, the big theory with quantum physics was that things at the atomic level were undecided until they got observed. And atoms construct the world, so how ridiculous would it be if the world was literally undecided when we're not around to observe it? That's what the experiment is all about.

"Inside the catbox, a single radioactive atom determines whether a Geiger counter releases the poison. But y'know, if atoms are in an undecided state until we observe them, then how does the Geiger counter even know whether to release the poison or not? And in that way, how does the counter determine whether the cat is alive or dead? Are you saying, realistically speaking, the cat really is alive _and_ dead? Just because of a single unseen atom? That's impossible as much as it's stupid. We know for a fact that things  _have to be_  either one or the other. The cat can't be both."

your conclusion comes with a slightly theatrical sigh. Saihara frowns even more and looks down at his scribbled writing. a long minute passes in that frozen silence.

eventually, you watch something passing through his eyes for a moment and—no, that's. that's. you're just seeing things now. you have to be.

"I get what you're trying to say..." he says, gently, "but can't we be?"

you feel your face twist with confusion, trepidation. "What?"

the boy raises his head, the sunrise coloring his eyes back to a familiar olive hue - bringing flecks of golden truth aimed right at you -  _you._  "We don't have to be just one or the other, Ouma-kun. We might prefer one side more, but ultimately, I think we can be both. Both alive and dead to be ourselves."

a small smile curls along his lips. recognition in its full glory. forgiveness - or the first step to it - at its fullest glory. somewhere, your heart cracks from receiving more than you ever thought you would. or should.

you didn't want to be recognized, after all.

you don't want to forgiven either.

you don't want any of that. you don't need it. you don't.  _you don't deserve this._

—so you don't register the way you slam the mug down on the table and get to your feet. you don't register the way you rush out of the room, ignoring Saihara's calls, the surprise and the concern that lingers as he calls your fading name. you don't register the way you take blind turns to return to your assigned room, to lock the door and lean against it, sliding down against the cool wood to press clammy fingers against a colder, marble floor.

the only thing you register is the frantic thought running around your heartbeats -  _don't meet him again. just don't just don't just don't. don't ever see his face again._

so you don't.

and again, for a while, Ouma Kokichi dies a quiet and unseen death.

 

 

 

 

thus the world becomes a lie.

the biggest, stupidest lie that you can string along. it just takes a smile, sweet words, softness bleeding from your skin - a bit of fidgeting where necessary, but your voice remains quiet and steady, hair without its purple dyes, eyes painted back to deep pitch. you smile, more placid than mischievous, and tell your appointed therapist that while you have the occasional night terror, too chaotic to be understood, you don't actually have any nightmares. really, really now, no lies here.

—and even though lying was your  _entire damn gimmick_ in the show, your worthless sessions are just filled with oblivious nods and enthusiastic comments about your wonderful improvement; it seems, minato-kun, you have a rare resilience to your implanted memories despite how long you were in the simulation! you know how it goes, right? of course you do, your candidate file notes that you were such a big fan of the show - well, almost everyone is, haha - so of course you know as well as everyone does about what being on the show entails.

you offer a slightly bashful look and a small laugh, small enough that the strain can't be heard. they aren't wrong. you do know.

your hands clench a bit on your lap as you remember a distant night, so distant that it feels like a whole other life but also doesn't - the full moon hanging just outside your window, sea salt and blue tickling your nose, your thoughts spiraling into the dark, so hopeful, so anxious, a dream unlike the ones in your sleep, anything, you thought, anything anything anything to be _someone else—_

behind the desk, you hear the idle tapping of pen to clipboard paper, the creak of a chair turning towards you, elbows planted lightly on the wood - "Well, with how smoothly things are going, I dare say that you might not need to come in again. A real record for someone from the fifth trial, really! Usually, participants from around there tend to have as much difficulty as the survivors in getting accustomed to the forced neural connections in their limbic system, but you're doing much better than we expected."

"o- oh." you don't try to wonder what they must have expected from you. considering how you behaved in the simulation, including your death - well, troublesome might be too kind a guess to make. "...does that mean i can go home soon?"

you receive a light nod and the clipboard being set to the side. a glance reveals several notes about your supposed mental stability.

"Yes, without a doubt. We just need to process the clearance papers for you with the higher ups, and arrange your cash prize for joining us on the show..."

 

 

 

 

on the night before you're set to leave, you spend a good three hours swallowing down screams from things that never happened (except they did), another two staring at the ceiling (wondering again how Shinguuji, your next-door neighbor, hasn't tattled yet on the few nightmares you couldn't hide), and the remaining hours on actual sleep (though you never feel rested, these days; you doubt you ever will from here on).

on the morning you're set to leave, you look out the windows on the seventh floor and see a sizable crowd of reporters and fans hounding the front of the gates. you are scheduled to leave through that exact same gate at around 10:00 AM at the latest. it is currently 7:00 AM, sharp.

for a while, your head feels stuffed with cotton and noise, unthinking, unable to think, as you watch the crowd grow. at 7:05 AM, something familiar snaps into place and you just think to yourself, through white cotton and white noise -  _fuck this._

you're leaving.

(to be precise, you think - fuck this, fuck everything, fuck you, fuck past you, fuck this stupid company that makes millions out of people's desire to have their brains rewritten so that they can give in to some primal urge to slaughter everyone, how can people still _be_ like this after what Saihara said at the end of the show? you're not going to deal with any of this. you don't _want_ to deal with any of those people out there. _just fuck this shit._ you're leaving, and you don't need to wait another three hours to do that. in fact, you never waited to take action where you could; a pinch of impatience was written into your character, remember?)

so an hour later, you find yourself at the employee-only exit at the back of the building - carrying your belongings in a bag, and dressed in the gakuran you initially wore when you came here to die on television. no one questions you as you keep your head down, show a filched badge saying INTERN in bold, and walk out into the streets with a meek excuse about how you wanted to see the next participant as they were leaving but yeah you're not _really_ supposed to be here right now, you were supposed to come in the afternoon and you just had the misfortune of being caught.

for the few employees who don't take the badge at face value - or who have better brains than most and feel suspicious about the familiarity of your face - you garner sympathy with the mention of, ah, some select words from your very angry and very imaginary supervisor. their pity is irritating as it is instantaneous, but also the most distracting thing ever.

all in all, child's play.

as you head to the nearest station, no one bats an eye at the random kid who seems to be running late to school. you stifle a snicker as you scan your suica card and navigate to the right train platform. of course, you understand better than you should that this isn't the smartest plan of action - you are _certainly_ no stranger to bad decisions, bad consequences, and the sheer trouble of things backfiring on you in the next couple of hours.

but, there is a comfortable vindication in thinking about how that eager crowd will be denied what they want, even for a little while, as everyone else runs around like chickens trying to figure out where you suddenly went to.

 

 

 

 

and so, like that, the dark horse of season 53 gains his notoriety for disappearances - and for the length of a train ride, you are certain that you will never feel as content to just exist.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 ("—and that's my story!"

Ouma grins, arms outstretched in a grand gesture - as if to say, here, take this truth, take this lie, choose your apple poisoned or unpoisoned however you wish. you're already frowning, but somehow, you can feel your face trying to frown again, deeper. a weird sensation, if not a weird moment to be in.

"Well," you start, even though you  _know_ that can't be the whole story - he hasn't even explained how he finally ended up in a hospital hours and hours away from tokyo - "I guess that explains why everyone was being so..."

you trail off with uncertainty. the boy leans forward a bit in your direction, his hands holding, framing his curious face.

"Busy? Loud? Annoying? Not that I would know, since I ran for the hills."

"The staff was like that," you remember, before remembering a more important thing from that odd day. your tone remains even - unnaturally, viciously so - as you say, "Now I know why Shuuichi was so worried back then."

"Was he?" you receive after a second too long. Ouma doesn't stop grinning - though he sits up a little straight, his hands falling to his cross-legged knees, his tone remaining even in an unnatural, vicious mirror of yours. a part of you, the one that remembers the killing game with perfect clarity in the middle of the night, meets the quiet tension with a quieter nonchalance. nothing comes out of it, though.

instead, the conversation swings the other way around, and you have to tell a story. you do so with less reluctance than you expected from yourself.)

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i dont know science or anything im just a smol humanities major
> 
> and yes. yes, i am Absolutely gonna make this fic about identity angst or whatever. WATCH ME TRY TO MIX TOGETHER POST-GAME CANON AND PRE-GAME FANON PERSONALITIES JUST WATCH ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! as i fail lol
> 
> SOME WORLDBUILDING/TRIVIA NOTES BECAUSE I LOVE BEING VAGUE WHILE WRITING!!!!!!!!!! - 
> 
> * **Real vs. virtual self:** Participants have an _entirely_ different identity within the killing game. It is an absolute given that their names, personality, appearance, history, etc. will be different from how they actually are in real life. In fact, the only similarity that is guaranteed is their heights; this is to prevent motor disorientation when participants, especially the longer-lasting ones, return from the show.  
> 
> *  **Identity rewriting** : The longer a participant stays in the show and thus in a brain-altering simulation machine, the likelier it is that the forced changes to their brain will stick.  
>   
> In general, participants that survive the fourth trial and beyond will mostly or completely see themselves as their given character than as the person they were before. Participants that die around the third and fourth trials have a 50/50 chance of sticking to their new identity or reverting back, though it is not uncommon for these participants to have a blended mix of qualities otherwise. Participants that leave the show before the third trial won't feel any changes.  
>   
> However, some can have a greater or weaker resistance than usual to the brain altering, as is the mistaken assumption with Ouma. Additionally, none of the brain-altering _erases_ any aspect of a participant's identity from before they entered the show; their real life attitudes, interests, memories, etc. will remain, it is just a matter of how much a participant will personally dissociate themselves from any of it - and what steps they may take to reduce or increase the psychological difference. (E.g.: Survivors like Yumeno cut and dyed their hair to better match how they looked on the show.)  
> 
> *  **Recognition of participants:** Everyone knows who the participants are - as characters in Danganronpa, that is. The real life identity of the participants is more unknown; parents and friends often know, as do a number of more dedicated (read: really creepy and stalkerish) fans who like to know and leak Everything about their fave charas. But otherwise, due to the potential discrepancy between how participants can look and behave in real life vs. the show, it is quite possible for some participants to go unrecognized.  
>   
> Within DR Co. as well, only particular persons—such as medical staff in frequent contact, technicians managing the simulation, character designers who have to work with some amount of real life data, and the panel of judges that review and select participants for the show—have a better awareness of who the participants are outside of the show. Literally everyone else in the company aka the majority of the employees either don't give a shit or have no (ethical) access to such information, if not both.  
> 
> *  **Suica card:** a prepaid train/bus pass that can be used in a select number of areas in Japan, but is most often used as one of two choice passes (the other being Pasmo) for getting around the main areas of the Greater Tokyo area.  
> 
> *  **The location of Team DR's headquarters:** This fic is following the most random ass headcanon that DR Co. has its main offices and facilities in the Chiyoda ward. Specifically, I was going to indicate that Ouma was near Akihabara - so the station he heads to would be Akihabara station, which is on a rail line that does accept the Suica card among other things that align with my half-baked fic plans - but then I thought it would be weird to see a student wandering around Akihabara at a time when students would reasonably already be at school, so I left it ambiguous ww. (I mean, alternatively, I could have changed it to Tokyo station which is in the same general area, but eh.)
> 
> i also want to say that since uni is going to start up soon, i will probably be on a v long and terrible writing hiatus so rip if this fic never gets updated after this ww


End file.
